[LINK] RFI: USPTO?

[Roger Clarke]

Intriguing.  In the time I composed this message to link, USPTO 
reappeared on the net.  So what follows is of historical interest 
only.  Either something near me on the net was badly broken, or the 
USPTO's name-servers were.
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Has the US Patents and Trademarks Office disappeared off the face of the earth?

There could be some considerable advantages for the rest of the world 
if that was the case, but I suspect it's only its e-presence that's 
died.

http://www.uspto.gov finds nothing, and nor does the DNS.

Google has plenty of URLs in cache (which aren't any use to me, 
because I'm looking for the text of a particular patent).

uspto.org exists, but it's just a con.  uspto.com exists too, but 
only as a for-sale sign.  (So I guess domain-name-squatters do still 
make money).

If anyone has any leads on this, please let me know.  It would be a 
right scandal if such a major government site had somehow lost both 
its primary and secondary domain-name server, and not recovered them 
in the time it takes cache around the world to clear out.

-- 
Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, UNSW
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong
Visiting Fellow in Computer Science,  Australian National University